It is well known that a motorcycle brake and clutch are activated manually by an actuating device in the form of a lever on the handlebars from which a hydraulic tube extends to the system in question, for example a hydraulically actuated brake or clutch.
The device actuating lever is usually located on the handlebar grips and the motorcyclist grasps the handlebars and lever and draws the latter towards the handgrip. Movement of the lever in turn produces a thrust on a hydraulic piston whose stroke or position determines the pressure of the fluid in the abovementioned hydraulic tube to command the associated brake or clutch.
Since these levers are normally the most external and exposed parts of a motorcycle, in the case of a fall the free end of the lever may strike the ground with a greater or lesser violent impact, causing breakage or deformation of the lever, or of its support and its fixing structure on the handlebars.
Breakage of the lever renders a manual brake or clutch unusable and is therefore serious damage that prevents the motorcyclist from continuing a journey or a race, for example.
The state of the art comprises collapsible levers which in the case of impact or fall permit an opening or shifting movement of the lever away from the handlebars in such a way as to reduce the risk of breakage.
These devices however do not always succeed in avoiding such breakage or deformation of the lever as to render it unusable.